Telecommunications networks transmit data through switches. A switch receives a signal and then transfers the signal toward its destination. Signals include data signals as well as conventional voice-grade telephone calls. Almost all calls are routed across the globe via switches. Public telecommunications voice networks use Signaling System 7 (SS7) to exchange information for wire line and wireless call setup, routing, and control. SS7 is an out-of-band messaging network that finds a path for every call and supports numerous products with adjunct databases (calling cards, 800 numbers, etc.). By using the out-of-band channel, SS7 networks relieve the load-bearing switches of call setup duties. The SS7 network includes a series of nodes called Signaling Points (SP). The Signal Transfer Point (STP) is one of these signaling points but also includes any point hardware and/or software, where a signal is transferred.
Switches are connected to other switches via communications links (links). Data flows through these links to reach their destinations. The links typically terminate inside an STP. An STP also houses subcomponents responsible for routing data packets such as SS7 packets. When a link fails, calls may possibly get rerouted but can ultimately be blocked. As links fail, traffic is supposed to be rerouted to alternative switches. This rerouting, however, does not always occur. As traffic continues to be routed to an STP that cannot handle it, eventually data cannot pass through the links. Historically, diagnosing the source of faulty links has been a tedious, cumbersome, time-intensive, and expensive process.
Links are associated with processing devices inside the STP. These processing devices can control other processing devices which are associated with still other links. Troubleshooting faulty links absent the present invention—often consumes upwards of forty-five minutes to an hour or more. Meanwhile, the traffic that is supposed to be routed across the downed links, including “911” calls for example, may not be arriving at its intended destination. Emergency calls such as “911” calls may not get through to the proper authorities. Internet traffic can become or remain disrupted. As long as the problem within an STP cannot be remedied, the integrity of data communications is impaired and diminished
To diagnose the problem that is causing traffic to be blocked, an analyst would manually enter a multiplicity of commands to gather link information stored within the STP. The analyst would then attempt to remotely submit the commands from a distant location. But bandwidth to the switch, even today, is limited. Moreover, the switch is often slow to respond as it tries to process the remote commands while under duress from the additional data to process.
As the analyst would enter switch commands to determine information about the STP, [s]he manually writes down the information, which includes data related to the processor devices within the STP. If data can be gathered about the various processors, then a commonality may surface that leads to a source of the communications problems. Identifying this commonality required the tedious and repetitious entering of remote commands to derive information related to link numbers. Link numbers are numbers associated with links or link cards where the links terminate. A typical switch may have 720 or more link numbers.
The analyst would enter commands to display a link route associated with a link number that may be down. These commands are often proprietary and must be memorized or known by the analyst. Next, the analyst would try to determine which processor is associated with corresponding links. After the processor is identified, the analyst would enter additional commands to determine all links associated with that processor. The analyst would manually attempt to decipher a pattern whereby faulty links could be associated with a common processor. Accordingly, if multiple processors were causing problems, then the process would have to be repeated for each processor device.
Even if fault links were seemingly associated with a common processor device, the processor device may not be the cause of the problem. In instances where the processor devices operate in a hierarchy, a top-level processor may be faulty. If a top-level processor is faulty, then a false-negative may be observed. That is, although a lower-level processor may appear to be faulty because no traffic is getting through it, that processor may not be faulty, but its corresponding higher-level processor may be faulty.
The current state of the art could be improved by providing a method that enables link-identification information stored in an STP to be rapidly retrieved. This link information can then be used to more quickly diagnose and correct communications problems.